The Meta Description and SEO

A meta description tag is piece of code written in HTML that gives a brief “description” (as the name implies) of what the web page is about. The tag is usually found in addition to a meta keyword tag and is normally found below the title tag and above the closing head tag.

What does it have to do with SEO?

Take a look at this search result pulled from Google:

In the purple you will see the title tag (more information on this can be found here ). Below that you see the description. This is a short description that can contain keywords and should be informative as you want the person searching to know that your page is relevant to their query.

How important is the meta description?

Search engines don’t really place a whole of emphasis on a meta description in comparison to say, the title. However, it is still a crucial part of any SE optimization plan. A good description tells the user how relevant the information is to their search, and is arguably the most important piece of a page when it comes to getting users to click on your page. It is well known that a lot of users will read the description before they read the title tag. So even though SE’s may not place a whole lot of weight on the tag, getting traffic to your page is certainly going to make up for this.

Ok, so what is the best way create and structure a meta description tag?

Generally, it is better to use up to and no more than approximately 155 characters. The reason for this is that when the searcher reads the description, they see a complete and concise description. If it is longer than this, you will get a trailing ellipsis (…), and this in generally bad practice. The SE’s will read more characters than this however.

*Tip

If you are having problems thinking of a good description, a good rule of thumb is to tell why, what, who, when, where, and how of your page content.